Pavia mayor most beloved in Italy, survey says

Tuscan governor most popular regional leader

(ANSA) - Rome, January 13 - Italy's most beloved city mayor
is Alessandro Cattaneo, the 34-year-old centre-right mayor of
the northern Italian city Pavia, a survey revealed on Monday.

Cattaneo had an approval rating of 68%, gaining 11
percentage points in a single year and 13.6 points since he was
elected in 2009, found IPR Marketing in its survey Governance
2013 for the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

The second most popular in Italy was Bari Mayor Michele
Emiliano, embraced by 66% of respondents in his southern Italian
coastal city, while another southern Italian, Salerno Mayor
Vincenzo De Luca came in third with 65% of voters polled backing
him.

Florence mayor and newly elected chief of the country's
centre-left Democratic Party (PD), Matteo Renzi, had a 55%
approval rating among Florentine voters, up three percentage
points over last year.
The gain boosted Renzi's ranking to 26th place compared to
62nd just two years ago in 2012, but the percentage of
Florentines backing him was still down 4.5% compared to his
election in 2009, when he won 59.5% of the vote.
Two out of three Italian mayors lost popularity over the
last year, with Roman Mayor Ignazio Marino prominent among them.

Marino had an approval rating of 56.5%, down 7.4% compared
to his win on election day last June.
The survey, which also ranked the popularity of Italy's
regional governors, found the chief of Rome's region, Lazio
Governor Nicola Zingaretti also lost ground.

Zingaretti lost 2.7 percentage points of voter support
since his election last February, slipping to 38%.

Meanwhile, Tuscan Governor Enrico Rossi ranked as most
popular regional governor in Italy in the survey.

With an approval rating of 57%, Rossi edged out the survey
favourite, Veneto Governor Luca Zaia, who came in second with a
56% approval rating,
Zaia in past years has come out on the top of the list
several times.
Third in popularity was another surprise.
Stefano Caldoro, governor of Campania - the region that
contains Naples - gained support to achieve a 55% approval
rating.

Italy's least popular governor was Rosario Crocetta,
Governor of Sicily, with an approval rating of 35%.
The openly gay, anti-mafia, centre-right governor in a
traditionally centre-right region nevertheless gained 4.5 points
over his election win in 2012.